Opinion
Letters

Letter to the editor

Recently your newspaper published an opinion from R. Michael Warren (Ontario is helping hospitals deny patients access to medical aid) bringing attention to important issues related to our culture's attitude and practice towards those facing the death. Mr. Warren made several arguments that require a reply. These arguments are not new but were used in past social discussions, especially related to the killing of unborn children.

The first issue relates to the reference of a single case from British Columbia of a man who was transferred from a hospital with a 'religious foundation' to another hospital so as to be killed by the staff of the second institution.

As in the past, the irreligious and secularist reach for one, or at the most a few, 'hard cases' to frame their argument as the 'compassionate' reaction. If one were to disagree, then you would automatically be branded as a hater or without compassion. In legal terms, however, this recalls the adage that 'hard cases make for bad laws'. The law should not overtly swayed by emotion. Rationality should have the prominence where the law is considered. It was emotionalism which brought the world the Holocaust and murder of those deemed undesirable or burdensome by Nazi Germany. And it was the deformed and the aged which were its first victims.

Secondly, Mr. Warren makes the assertion that the spending of taxpayers’ money must adhere to non-religious ideals. He presumes that persons of religious faith should have no right to see their money spent on procedures or programs which contradict their faith principles. Why this presumption? Are not people with a religious lifestyle equal before the law? According to Mr. Warren's argument they are not.

Mr. Warren then attempts to add credence to his arguments by selectively quoting from Daphne Gilbert, a law professor for the University of Ottawa. Both he and Prof. Gilbert refer to the recently decided Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) case of Loyola High School vs. Quebec to bolster their argument that 'Catholic' hospitals must surrender their most sacred beliefs related to providing medical care. However, this reference is spurious at best. The SCC decided that religious-founded organizations were entitled to protection of their core beliefs if a mandate from government profoundly contradicted those beliefs. Thank you Mr. Warren and Professor Gilbert for making 'my case'.

Time nor space will allow me further repudiation of Mr. Warren's attempt to secularize and diminish the valued beliefs of religiously-based hospitals in our society. Suffice to say, the secular utopia which Mr. Warren and his ilk yearn to achieve has always remained a figment of their imagination. History and even the present are amply littered with the carnage and wreckage of societies and nations where religion, and especially Christianity, has been driven out of public discourse and practice.

The use of the euphemism 'assisted dying' is the 'thin edge of the wedge' which will bring about our own particular Canadian Holocaust regardless of the wilful blindness Mr. Warren has regarding the lessons of history.